So the US has basically been kicking the immigration reform can down the road for...well over a decade. Two decades? Three? Which finally came to a head with Trump's explosion of xenophobia. Because he is an idiot and because Jeff Sessions now runs the Justice Department, there's no proposed reforms apart from Build A Big Wall and Deport All The People. Which is more government by publicity stunt and posturing.

Where does the US go from here? And what should the Democrats' position on immigration be? Right now they appear to be defining their position in opposition to Trump. Which is understandable given Trump's absurdly xenophobic pronouncements. But "let's let anybody in who wants to come and not bother enforcing immigration laws" is not a realistic policy either. It's a bit nuts. And it's not going to be politically popular in states they need to win, either. So what now? Is it even possible to talk about immigration reform in this political climate?

There's an axiom used in the military that I think applies to this immigration debate regarding illegal immigration:

"Never give an order you know won't be obeyed."

So much of the debate on immigration centers around fringe ideas like the useless border wall or various "papers please" laws and pseudo-military forces doing border control. The fact of the matter is that there are simply too many ways to enter the country to secure the borders properly, or at least the way the reich-wingers want it done. Unless the USA wants to institute the Soviet style Berlin Wall border guard system (which STILL leaked people on a regular basis) and hard, lengthy, expensive vetting for everyone getting off a plane with a visa, its just not feasible.

So you can write as many laws as you want, put up as much concrete wall as you want, in the end people are going to come into the country illegally, because they believe it will lead to a better life than where they come from. So let's do what nearly every other first world country does: Create genuine paths to citizenship that are attainable, set up a system with reasonable terms for examining individual incoming refugees rather than a hard cap on how many are allowed. Deal with the reality on the ground rather than your xenophobia. Deal with the situation like adults.

What would actually help policywise would be basically what baconbots suggested. A viable path to legal ecconomic migration, so ecconomic migrants try to appy there, rather then migrating illegally, or try to (ab)use the asylum system.

Such policies are unpopular though and you i don't think you will win elections with it.

For political tactics for the Democrats would be:

1) Don't be too specific about their policies, formulate broad principles ("Deal with the situation like adults", "Have a realistic immigration policy, that channels illegal to legal migration, that also takes the capacities of the US into account"). Make sure the broad principles contain references to immigrants, who should not be let in, and in general talk more about the impact on the US ecconomy, then about humanitarian considerations. In short they should promise a "great immigration policy".

2) Whenever they are in the situation to say "No" to some minority, do so in a blunt impolite fashion. They can have a more extensive answer, that is more polite and diplomatic as well, but a blunt soundbite should also exist.

The trouble for the Democrats is that they are caught between the swing voters (who are open to an economically populist message but want much more restrictive immigration) and their base, who have lately come to view anything short of total amnesty for all undocumented immigrants except violent felons as racist. They'll have to figure out to what extent their base's position is reactive - Trump's awfulness has pushed them further to the opposite extreme.

Immigration used to be one of those issues that cut across party lines. Some Democrats favoured more restrictive immigration policies because they felt it depressed the wages of native-born workers. The business wing of the Republicans favoured more open immigration so that they could legally import more cheap labour. Not anymore.

The trouble for the Democrats is that they are caught between the swing voters (who are open to an economically populist message but want much more restrictive immigration) and their base, who have lately come to view anything short of total amnesty for all undocumented immigrants except violent felons as racist. They'll have to figure out to what extent their base's position is reactive - Trump's awfulness has pushed them further to the opposite extreme.

Hence my advice for a great immigration policy, that keeps all the good hombres in and throws all the bad hombres out, and bad hombres are like violent felons and such.

The odd thing about this (and many other) issues in the US is that if you ask the public what they want in polls, the consensus is there, and it looks pretty much like what you said. But they can't get there from here. The absolutists suck up all the oxygen.

They can't even get their crap together enough to agree that they shouldn't deport adoptees whose parents were too disorganized or uninformed or plain crappy to file the paperwork to make them citizens. Now there's a bunch of these adults running around, who in some cases don't even realize they're not citizens, who get in trouble with minor drug charges, and then boom, they find themselves in South Korea or wherever, where they don't know a soul. Sure, some of them might be "bad hombres", but surely people who you adopted as babies are YOUR bad hombres. Put them in jail if they commit crimes.

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